Help! Private Rental House Has Mice

[Deleted User]

I live in a private Rental house in a reasonably large town (not in the countryside).

The house has been a nightmare.., replaced a mouldy bathroom, insulated roof space, put a false ceiling in another bedroom cause chimney 'hole' caused the room to be freezing.

A couple of months ago I had to pay £250 to get rid of bed bugs. I believe but can't prove they came from next door as the room affected (and it was one room initially) hadn't had any new furniture and we'd lived here for over a year before they hit. A HMO was set up next door and apparently they didn't live very cleanly.

Now I have mice. Been seen in two bedrooms. Its gone from nothing to two sightings in two nights and really horrible smells in two bedrooms and the lounge. I have two children with special needs and they are terrified. I've tried to explain that mice are kept as pets etc but it hasn't helped.

My landlord refuses to do all repairs. I am certain he'll say the mice are my fault although they I hope they aren't. I keep the place clean, rubbish is put in a large plastic bin I purchased but I have been a bit unwell the last couple of months and the children's bedrooms haven't been cleaned as well as usual so maybe that caused it, I don't know.

So what do I do. I'm so fed up of this house. But I'm a carer dependent on benefits, finding another place won't be easy. I could move from 15th September (break clause in tenancy agreement starts then) but it still won't be easy finding a deposit again.

I suspect that like the bed bugs, it won't be easy to get rid of mice (I am not looking at humane methods, sorry but I just want them gone).

anselld

The traditional snap trap is arguably the most humane treatment anyway!
Ideally you need to find out where they are getting in and block; wire wool will do but if it is building defect the LL should repair.
If the cause is anything other than building defects it is down to you to deal with. Get some snap traps and wire wool. If you are squeamish no need to extract the dead mouse from the trap just bin the lot, they are very cheap at B&Q etc.

WellKnownSid

Agreed - but keep the kids out of the way of traps to avoid accidents. The best thing about traps is that the mouse doesn't then crawl away somewhere to die, you'll be smelling that for months if you can't get to the body...

kyana

in addition to the traps you could use peppermint essence soaked cotton wool balls near any possible entry points in the kids' rooms if they don't mind the smell. it worked relatively well for us, mice have sensitive noses which don't like the smell apparently. but use traps as well, this is more a backup.

Fraise

Sorry to hear of your problem. The most essential, and I mean essential thing to do in eradicating the mice is to find and block their entry points. You can use as much poison, baits, whatever to kill them, but they will keep, keep coming back unless you find their entry point. Mice can get in a hole as small as a pencil so you need to search the whole outside of your house and block every single hole with wire wool and possibly cement. Really, your landlord is responsible for blocking the holes but as wire wool and cement is so cheap it's probably not worth the bother of asking.

Meanwhile, to kill the mice already in your house, and without alarming you they breed like mad, you're better off calling the local council to come out and lay poison down. They use far more effective poison than you can buy in the Hight Street shops. It will cost somewhere in the region of £80 depending on the council, but they will cover you for 3 months to make sure the mice have gone.

If you do buy traps the best ones are glue traps, I think the £1 shop do them, and the thing to tempt the mice with is peanut butter. Don't feel embarrassed about having mice, they will come into any house they can gain entry to. They come in for shelter and also to feed. They can live on breadcrumbs, anything, so it's also essential to tin all your cereals, bread, pasta etc, and make sure there is no food whatsoever that they can nibble on, even crumbs on the kitchen floor, leave no food around at all.

The best deterrent of all is a cat, have you considered that? You could get one from a rescue centre and your children might benefit from one too.

I do sympathise with you, mice are horrible.

Do you mind me asking why you paid to redo the bathroom etc? Surely that's your LL's responsibility? Also, I'm, a bit confused about the chimney hole and false ceiling? Where was the chimney hole exactly?

Werdnal

Please don't get glue traps unless you are prepared to "finish off" the mice that get stuck in them!

You need to find out where they are getting in, as others have said, as you will be treating the symptoms and not to cause otherwise. Check under the kitchen sink where pipes come through walls and same places in the bathroom, as these are prime places. If you can get a pencil through a hole a mouse will get in.

If you are tempted to use poison bait, please be careful with it as if the mice eat it it does not kill them instantly, and they can wander outside and be eaten by a neighbours cat ... making it ill or killing it!

Block up any holes you can find before you start catching/killing the ones inside, otherwise they will just invite all their friends round. You can use wire wool or even scrunched up tin foil jammed in the holes as a temporary measure.

If there are holes allowing them in, the LL is responsible for repairs, so report to him in writing asking him to address it. If you had moved in and found the mice already there, the LL would also be responsible for getting rid of them, but as you appear to have been there a while now, tenant is responsible for eradication, the same as any other pest that appears during a tenancy. You can ring council for advice, but many have tendered out their pest control and will charge you for the service.

bouicca21

From personal experience, if poison kills the mouse in an inaccessible place, the smell is awful - but it only lasts 3 days. I have mice too. Wire wool in access points deterred them for nearly a year, then they found a way through. The new lot don't eat poison. They ignore my snap traps (but my fingers are very painful). Glue traps are very effective according to the local garden centre, but horribly cruel. I think I'll try the peppermint essence solution. How often does the cotton wool need replacing?

Guest101

Also consider electronic deterrants, work quite well, plug one on each floor, they'll soon leave.

Fraise

bouicca21 wrote: »

From personal experience, if poison kills the mouse in an inaccessible place, the smell is awful - but it only lasts 3 days. I have mice too. Wire wool in access points deterred them for nearly a year, then they found a way through. The new lot don't eat poison. They ignore my snap traps (but my fingers are very painful). Glue traps are very effective according to the local garden centre, but horribly cruel. I think I'll try the peppermint essence solution. How often does the cotton wool need replacing?

Yes the smell soon goes. Wire wool is effective but needs replacing as it wears with weather/time etc. Much better to fill with wire wool and cement or better still, some silicone mastic with broken shreds of glass. Mice cannot chew through silicone.

They will ignore poison if there's food around (just crumbs) so need to be scrupulous about food storage and clearing any spillages, even emptying the toaster of its crumbs.

Glue traps are not a humane way to get rid of mice, but mice are a vermin that carry disease and they urinate on your food, which is a great health hazard

Guest101 wrote: »

Also consider electronic deterrants, work quite well, plug one on each floor, they'll soon leave.

I've read reviews where people say the electronic deterrents are hopeless.

Guest101

Think they can vary in effectiveness, based on the house, the lay out, even the materials.

I Have one for insects, seems to do ok. Got it coz kids hate spiders.

[Deleted User]

Thank you for all your advice .., good points made.

I'm a bit laid up with asthma (just come out of hospital with it) so finding access points is going to be a problem but I'll do it somehow.

Basically I had to redo the bathroom because the waste pipes leaked, two out of four taps didn't work, I could see old mold had been covered (found a leaking shower pipe). I ended up retiling, reconcreting the floor, replacing bath, replacing taps and re plastering walls after repairing the piping. The landlord refused to do it so I had to.

There was no insulation upstairs and lots of rubble from removal (not removed from attic space, just taken down) of chimney breasts. I had to remove rubble and put in insulation.., the free services wouldn't do it because of the rubble. This was just after a bout of asthma and a minor heart attack so if I could have found another way I would have done. But the kids were freezing. The landlord said I should have told him the previous summer and 'now it will have to wait til next summer'. The kids couldn't sleep in their rooms so I had to do it. My younger son's room had a closed off bit of roof above it (like a gable, seperate attic space). Chimney breast had been removed but the chimney hadn't been capped off. So there was a wind coming in from what was left of the chimney. Made the room appreciably cooler than rest of house. Landlord offered to put a larger radiator in which wouldn't have helped at all (radiators don't exactly give much heat at best of times). Finally managed to get some plasterboard off him, so could put a lower false ceiling in with more insulation but had to pay for framing and decorating ourselves. But room is now warm.

I complained to environmental health about all the problems in the house. They didn't visit, they wrote to landlord and I received a very irate letter from him. This is in spite of having dodgy electronics and an ancient boiler (that is now none working).

Yes my landlord is abusing the system.., but he can given how things work. Ultimately if I get given notice (which has been threatened many times) we are on the streets. Housing won't help, I've already been to them. EH won't help, tried them. Yes, it is a nightmare and yes it is affecting my already iffy health, mental and physical. Both of my son's have special needs and both of them are restless sleepers. But nothing matters to anyone else but to me. So I have to sort these messes out. Yep I am well aware that landlord thinks I have a right mug here but what can I do. Its this or the streets.